Acceptance
by InkedBaby
Summary: Two moments that changed Remus Lupin's life forever and gave him hope for a better, easier future. Marauder's era. Blink and you miss them hints of RL/SB preslash. Oneshot about friendship. Rated for a bad word. Oops.


**So, I was looking through my stories and realized only one was Harry Potter and none were MWPP era, and, well, that just wont do.**

**Summary: Two moments that changed Remus Lupins life and gave him hope for a better, easier future.**

**Disclaimer: Everything recognizable belongs to JK Rowling, no copyright infringement is intended.**

1.

Remus Lupin sighed heavily as he made his way to his dormitory. He knew he'd be facing an onslaught of questions once he got back to his room, as he did every other month. It was nearing Christmas break of his first year at Hogwarts, and already he was having a difficult time keeping his secret.

Remus quickly muttered the password to the fat lady and winced as he climbed his way through the portrait hole. This months transformation had been one of the worst yet, he'd been so nervous that his friends were close to learning his secret and the wolf must have picked up on it. Remus braced himself against the wall the second he made it through the common room and tried to relax through the hammering of pain caused by his two broken ribs.

When Remus managed to calm down he rubbed his eyes warily as he made his way through the common room and up the steps to his shared room. The fear of his friend's questions was always very present when he came back from the hospital wing after transformations. Remus loved his friends, they'd only known each other for half the school year, but already they were inseparable, and he knew if his secret was exposed that would be ripped away from him.

Remus took a deep breath, regretted it immediately as the pain swept through him, and opened the door to his room.

The moment the door opened Remus was swept up in a gentle hug, black hair tickling his cheek lightly. "Uhh," Remus whispered in shock and discomfort as the pain in his ribcage hadn't subsided.

"Oh Merlin, I'm sorry! I didn't hurt you did I Rem?" Sirius jumped back, worried as James' shout of "SIRIUS!" broke through the room. "Merlin, you're so stupid, you didn't hurt him did you?"

Remus squinted in confusion as James made his way over to join Sirius in inspecting him. Peter watched warily from his bed.

"I'm fine guys," he lied, trying to hide the pain from his ribs. "No you aren't!" Sirius protested furiously, "come sit down." The young boy was dragged helplessly over to his bed and watched in confusion as Sirius made a huge fuss about him being comfortable.

"What are you-" his voice trailed off as he shook his head, bewildered as James came to sit on the floor in front of him on the floor. Once Sirius was satisfied that the young boys bed was up to his standards he sat down seriously and faced Remus.

"Merlin, Remus, look at you! Why didn't you tell us? You look like you're in serious pain." Remus eyes widened in shock as he took in James' question. Panic started to flood the boys body and he tried to fight down the urge to gasp for breath.

"Rem?" he ignored Sirius and looked down at his lap, his eyes watering and breath getting shaky despite his best efforts. "Rem?" Sirius whispered again, his arm snaking around the boys shoulders and pulling him to him. "Look at me." He did. "Why didn't you tell us you were a werewolf? Honestly Remus, we could have helped you."

The Panic flowing through Remus was replaced by shock and he didn't know what to do beside stare and try to mumble out a few words. "What- How'd- I-" he shook his head furiously and tried to squirm out of the other boy's arm until he froze. Sirius' arm was around him. He just said he knew Remus was a werewolf but his arm was still around him. Wha- "I'm confused."

"What do you mean you're confused?" Sirius asked. "All these times you've gone away to endure horrible pain and you come back in here only to find us jumping around excited that you're back when we should have been comforting you!" The young, aristocratic face of the eleven year old boy was full of shame and stony resolve.

"I feel so stupid," James piped up from the floor, "we could have made this so much easier on you but we've probably made things worse." the young Potter shook his head solemnly and looked thoroughly ashamed of himself.

"Make it better?" Remus asked. He was still confused, people usually shied away from the boy when they found out about his condition, but here he was with Sirius Black's arm around his shoulder and James Potter declaring he wanted to make things better. "But you don't... you don't hate me?"

"What? No!" Sirius basically screamed as James shook his head in agreement and Peter finally joined in the conversation from his bed.

"We could never hate you," the chubby marauder declared earnestly as Remus' mouth hung open, "and why would we? It's not like it's your fault."

"So what you have a furry little problem," Sirius added in thoughtfully, always one to lighten a situation with humor, "you're still Remus Lupin, fellow marauder."

2.

"REMUS!"

The mentioned third year marauder growled angrily as he heard his name yelled, again, down the boys dormitory stairs. All Remus wanted was a little peace and quiet with the new book he got, the full was right around the corner and he needed some way to relax. But no, James Potter was yelling ungracefully down the stairs at him for no good reason.

"REEEEMUS!"

Remus slammed his book closed, murderously angry, and marched his way across the common room and up the stairs.

"What the bloody hell do you want, James? You've been screaming like a bloody banshee when you could walk your lazy ass down the stairs and come get me like a civilized human. You know the full is a few days away, do you have to be such an insufferable -" the boys rant was cut short as a black dog leaped down from his bed a jumped unceremoniously on Remus.

The dog with pitch black with starling grey eyes that peered right into Remus's own. The dog stood with his two front paws on Remus's shoulders and cocked its head to the side in what looked to be amusement.

"Why do you have a mangy dog and why does it look like it's laughing at me?" Remus deadpanned, used to coming across unexpected things after living with James and Sirius for nearly 3 years. He did have to admit this was a new one, though. He looked away from the dogs strangely emotional grey eyes to James and Peter. The two had started laughing hysterically at some point and were now clinging on to each other for support.

Remus didn't really know what was funny, but he caught a strangled "mangy" through their amusement. Remus waited calmly for the two to calm down as her took in the new addition to their room, his anger forgotten.

Remus reached out a tentative hand to pet the black dog and it licked his face gratefully as he scratched behind its ear. Remus smiled slightly, he'd always had a thing for animals. He motioned for the dog to get down and went to sit down on his bed. Remus glanced back at the dog once he got comfortable and imagined he saw a hurt look in his eyes. "Oh come here," he muttered and the dog jumped excitedly onto his bed, tail wagging rapidly as he laid across Lupin's lap.

When Remus noticed James and Peter had calmed down considerably a thought struck him, "where's Sirius?" James smiled and him and Peter shared another amused glance. They ignored his question.

"You know how we've been reading up on werewolves?" Peter began, and looked to James to take the lead.

"Well," the dark haired boy continued, "we came across this text in a werewolves point of view that said werewolves literally tear themselves apart when they're left alone."

Remus nodded and seemed to shrink down in his bed, the dog leaned into the boy to comfort him as if he knew his discomfort. Remus didn't really liked talking about the more gruesome side to his condition. It was true though, since he was alone on full moons he literally tore at himself in frustration.

"So we kept reading and noticed that animal company seemed to help this werewolf from himself during full moons."

"So you got me a dog?" Remus asked confused. "You do realize that animal instincts are to run from dark creatures, a dog would never stay with a werewolf throughout the night."

James and Peter shared another amused glance before James went on. "No, we got you a Sirius."

Peter snorted his amusement and James chimed in with a small chuckle.

The dog in Remus' lap jumped up and started licking the boys face repeatedly. Remus laughed at the dogs excitement but still didn't know what was going on. "I'm confused, where is Sirius."

James tsk'd and shook his head as he took in the scene before him. "Remus, you're smarter than this." In taking in the boys still confused appearance he finally gave in.

"Sirius!"

The excited dog in Remus' lap barked one more time before quickly morphing into Sirius Black. "What-" Remus shook his head before taking in the fact that a now very excited Sirius was sitting in his lap and the black dog was gone. "You're an-"

"Animagus? Yeah! I've wanted to tell you for weeks but this lot wouldn't let me," he shook his head, "they're trying to become one too, but they're lousy at it."

"How did you do it?" Remus said in awh, looking down at the black fur on his shirt that confirmed he hadn't in fact imagined the whole thing.

"Well, it was rather difficult, but I did it for you Remus. And James and Peter are too," the boys nodded in conformation. "Your wolf is going to love having us to play with, and you'll stop hurting yourself Rem." Remus started at Sirius as an all to familiar emotion of gratefullness welled up inside of him as he took in his friends.

"Before you ask, we researched it, human magical signature isn't traceable through animagus form, so the wolf will have no idea we aren't real animals that have come to play with him."

"We haven't all got it down yet, Rem, but Sirius can come with you this full, and we'll join next month," James said from his bed, where he wondered over after the big reveal.

"What are you guys?"

Everyone laughed as Peter turned red, even though Remus didn't even know why he was laughing. "James is a Stag and Peter's a rat." James looked proud and Peter looked away before muttering something about the bathroom and leaving the room.

"You did this for me?" Remus still couldn't believe it, he'd remembered there was times in the last few months where he couldn't find any of his friends and had felt extremely left out, but if this is what they were doing he couldn't help but be embarrassed of his past feelings.

Sirius nodded his reply scooted off Remus' lap to sit by him like a normal human. "We wanted to wait until we all could transform completely, but we didn't want you to have to go through even one more full moon alone, so we decided to tell you now."

Remus took in his best friend and smiled happily before pulling the boy into himself for a hug with a whispered "thank you."


End file.
